Profile

We are the IT service provider with the highest concentration of expertise

Our customers value the outstanding quality of our work. For a customer, the quality of a service provider depends on the level of expertise of the team selected to carry out a certain project. We have recognised that it is our concentration of expertise that sets us apart from our competitors. For us, concentration of expertise refers to the ratio between the level of expertise of the entire team and the size of the team. Usually, this concentration of expertise decreases as the size of a company increases. We take great care that this ratio remains at least constant, even when we are expanding. This is why we select new employees extremely carefully by taking a very close look at their expertise and particularly potential. We want to ensure that we also remain the IT service provider with the highest concentration of expertise in the future.

People instead of numbers

iteratec is not a company driven by numbers. We have never had a business plan. The main focus of our owner-operated company is to support our customers and to entrust our colleagues with interesting and challenging projects. In light of this, we have developed a company culture that is completely people-oriented. This also motivates our team to always give their best and aim for maximum quality.

The company culture matches our guiding principles within which our colleagues work. There are no goals such as growth percentages, profit margins, head counts or the like. There are also no rules what topics or technologies are to be used in our projects or which industries and companies we aim to work for. This applies as long as there are projects that the team enjoys working on and with which we can earn some money, at least in the medium term. This is decided by those acquiring the projects, based on the motto “everybody gets those projects the customer entrusts them with“. There is only one thing we don‘t do: We do not work for customers whose business model we cannot identify with at all, e.g. for the defence industry.

"The entire culture of iteratec is people- and not number-oriented. Numbers are results, not goals!“ (Klaus Eberhardt)

History

iteratec – the success story

On 1 July 1996, Klaus Eberhardt and Mark Goerke founded iteratec GmbH. iteratec stands for iterative software technologies. With this focus, the founders were well ahead of their time. At this time, software projects were almost exclusively implemented according to rigid waterfall models. Eberhardt and Goerke developed their own process model that created project results iteratively and incrementally. Scrum is an agile method which is common worldwide today. It is based on an iterative approach, just like iteratec already developed 20 years ago. This shows: We support our customers with methods and approaches that are still in the distant future for others!

Our customers such as Audi, BMW, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn, Lufthansa, Otto, Red Bull Media House, Swiss Life or Zalando entrust our excellent team with challenging and varied projects. Since iteratec was founded it has continuously grown and permanently expanded its range of experience. With only 16 IT specialists in 1997, we are proud to say that iteratec has more than 350 employees at seven locations today.

Moving target

Mastering the moving target

Software projects have the problem that their goal descriptions are only finished once the system is already in use. All attempts to give priority to the goal description through documentation, specifications or pseudo-code fail due to the complexity of the task.

The moving target – a law of nature

For all software projects, the original goals change over time. The moving target is somewhat of a law of nature. And no matter if you view the moving target as an opportunity or a risk, it is the reality and should not be ignored. The various procedure models deal with this issue differently. However, all focus on capturing the moving target. For further reading, you can follow the link to an article on the moving target in Computerwoche.

Company strategy and IT in harmony

At the start the scope for decisions is still broad and the planned solution merely a desired object. During the process of the project, more and more requirements and experiences come to light which increase the focus of the goal definition but also move the goal into a different direction. It is often technological aspects which require or enable a correction of the goals or alternatively discoveries which are only made once a certain amount of time was spent on the topic. Additionally of course, the market, competitors, as well as the legal landscape are in constant flow and require the IT to adapt to any changes in the company strategy.

Customer-oriented approach

The combination of highly competent employees with agile, iterative process models was the founding idea of iteratec and remains the core of our brand to this day. Unlike many other IT service providers focusing on agility, we are not tied to one or two process models but select the most suitable model for the relevant context together with our customers. We like working with SCRUM or Kanban but the waterfall model or V-model XT can be carried out iteratively by our competent employees together with our customers. In doing so, we place much more importance on capturing the moving target than on a particular process model.

Supporting our customers in key processes

In our projects we support our customers where it is most necessary: with their key processes and systems. It is precisely in those places where there are a lot of opportunities to differentiate yourself from your competitors. The requirement to react quickly and in a targeted manner often does not allow to wait for the end of a project. The changed market only allows for a certain degree of stability in processes of little importance; for the key processes there is a constant need to develop, adjust and optimise. IT projects can make an important contribution here. They are not supposed to block change, as is often the case due to long design phases and cumbersome specification documents but instead to support and move change forward. For this, the most competent employees and suitable agile process models are required. You will find these at iteratec GmbH.

Innovation@iteratec

Room for innovative ideas

Our customers value our creativity and the ability to leave well-trodden paths in favour of better solutions. Our ability to do exactly that is proven every day during the various challenging projects we are involved in. Whether for DriveNow, the MINI Augmented Vision Data Glasses or the E.ON Smart Metering Platform, we can add valuable ideas for outstanding solutions time and time again. In times of digital transformation, iteratec is therefore a reliable partner for many companies in different industries.

Mastering digital transformation in an inspiring environment

Digitalisation is becoming an increasingly large part of our life and influences the business world more and more. Traditional business models are becoming obsolete and the change going along with that presents an increasing risk for many companies.

The right use of IT is the key success factor for future business models. The overall success depends on whether the team has the necessary IT expertise and can realise its creativity in an inspiring environment.

The iteratec team has this ability as well as the necessary freedom to develop new ideas for our customers. Additionally, we host our own “hackathons” (that we call “iterathons”) or participate in those of our customers (e.g. BMW’s “Hack the Drive” car hackathon in January 2015 in San Francisco). Many of the ideas developed there have been able to provide valuable input to the success of the company (for example, our award-winning OpenSpeedMonitor or iteraHub, an iteratec-internal communication platform). In order to leave even more room for these innovative ideas, we have established the iteratec Innovation Free-Day.

Fridays are our invention days: The Innovation Free-Day

Realising own ideas, e.g. in the area of IoT, carrying out technological studies or tool evaluations, writing publications, preparing internal trainings or external presentations, having time for research projects and other cooperation with universities; iteratec employees can work on projects like these and many more during their working hours on Innovation Free-Day, completely on their own initiative and without having to justify themselves.

The name already expresses the concept: “free”, i.e. everybody can do what they would like. This applies to the entire team, independent of the level of seniority or area of activity. It therefore also applies to our internal service teams. The fact that “Free-Day” nearly sounds like “Friday” is also no coincidence. In order to enable team-building across different projects and locations, Friday is the preferred day. However, the teams are also free to decide on this.

As a medium-sized company with a very flat hierarchical structure we are used to make decisions quickly and to consider the ideas of our – often still quite young – colleagues. We have proven many times that we are able to quickly grasp new concepts or technologies and implement them successfully in projects.

In order to retain this ability in the long-term we have introduced our Innovation Free-Day. This enables us to take advantage of the fact that our teams are very close to the technological and methodological developments in the IT environment. Thanks to our company culture – including the Innovation Free-Day as part thereof – they can feel the freedom and autonomy they have with respect to the further development of iteratec. And our customers can feel this, too!

A passion for tinkering: slab

There is often not enough time to experiment and research while working on an active project. This is why we have founded our student lab. This is not only used to implement a variety of internal projects but also for various current research topics and innovations. The focus is on the following topics: IoT Prototyping and Mqtt, alternative operating concepts, connected mobility and DevOps.

The students work in changing teams and are supported by experienced employees. Apart from the projects, they can also work on research tasks that are carried out in cooperation with other companies and various universities.

Responsibility

Responsible actions is what matters to us

As a company we feel responsibility on many different levels. Particularly with respect to our colleagues and their families but also with respect to our customers and their contact persons. This also applies to our partners and suppliers as well as the environment and the whole of society. We aim to live up to these many responsibilities at all times by acting with integrity, loyalty, fairness and reliability. This also means that we have a system of values that support our team and in which we feel comfortable. In light of this, we refuse orders from e.g. the defence industry. Additionally, we want to conserve resources wherever possible and therefore try to use public transport as much as possible and have electric vehicles in our company fleet. Every year we give five-figure sums to national and international charities and support the OMOPO e.V.. Additionally, many of our employees volunteer during their spare time, e.g. for the IT association (Gesellschaft für Informatik) or the Münchner Kreis.

Partnerships

There are many non-committal networks – we have partners we can count on

Excellent teams are characterised by a high level of qualification and smooth cooperation. It is not necessary to belong to the same company. We do not always have specialists for all issues and topics in our own team. In that case, we refer to colleagues with the relevant specialist expertise. This can be employees of other consultancy companies or renowned freelancers. For large projects we supplement our development team with friendly software companies or near / offshore partners. We have proven numerous times in successful projects how successfully we can work with all of our partners.